By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies as described in
our privacy policy
unless you have disabled them.You can change your cookie
settings at any time but parts of our site will not function correctly without them.

Case method expert David A. Garvin dies aged 64

Harvard Business School professor and distinguished case writer, David A. Garvin, passed away on 30 April after a long battle with cancer.

A professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, New York City-born David died aged 64 at his home in Lexington, north-west of Boston, Massachusetts.

Over a career lasting 40 years, David studied case method pedagogy, amongst other subjects, authoring or co-authoring ten books and 37 articles, and winning a glut of awards for his work.

Joining the HBS faculty in 1979, David taught a variety of courses on the School’s MBA and Executive Education programmes, and held a number of positions, eventually becoming the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration in 2002. Professor C. Roland Christensen was widely regarded as the world’s greatest authority and exponent of the case method.

David’s passion for case writing and teaching saw him develop more than 70 case studies, ranging from Boeing 767 to Emerging Business Opportunities at IBM.

David’s commitment to the case method found expression in a relationship on numerous levels with The Case Centre. This included the distribution of David’s cases, naming him as one of the bestselling case authors on the inaugural list of 2015/16, while he also contributed to a number of The Case Centre’s in-depth feature articles.

“David really was an extraordinary man and will be greatly missed; he was a great friend of The Case Centre,” said Richard McCracken, Director of The Case Centre.

“David did so much for the case method. He not only wrote a wealth of case studies and books, but he knew how to make cases come alive in the classroom. David realised how important it was to make students key to the discussion – he simply understood everything the case method was trying to achieve and was hugely influential and generous in how he shared his insights.”

David is survived by his wife Lynn and daughters Diana and Cynthia (Cindy).

Read David’s full obituary on the Harvard Business School website here. All of his cases distributed by The Case Centre can be accessed here.

Share this page:

Press contact

If you have any enquiries or requests for interviews please contact our Press Office.

The Case Centre is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee,
registered in England No 1129396 and entered in the Register of Charities No 267516.
VAT No GB 870 9608 93. It is also the trading name of The Case Centre USA,
a non-profit making company. Tax ID No 04-31-43431.